


First Meeting

by oOAchilliaOo



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27882177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oOAchilliaOo/pseuds/oOAchilliaOo
Summary: Elissa Cousland has just had everything taken from her. Her family, her home, her life. Now, she’s on the road to Ostagar to become a Grey Warden, but not by her choice, and Duncan either doesn’t care, or doesn’t know how, to comfort her. But maybe, maybe, amidst all of this there is one glimmer of joy left in the world.(My warden’s thoughts on meeting Alistair for the first time)
Relationships: Alistair/Female Cousland (Dragon Age), Alistair/Female Warden (Dragon Age)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	First Meeting

She felt… empty.

Not upset, not broken, not mad, not even _sad_ , just… empty. As if everything that was happening, and everything that had happened, was happening to someone else. Someone far, _far_ away from her.

But actually, that made more sense, didn’t it? That this was all someone else’s fate.

Not hers.

She would _never_ have left her parents to die in their cellar. She would have stayed with them. Fought to the end. Howe was her father’s _friend_. It didn’t make any _sense._

It couldn’t be true. Couldn’t be happening to _her._

Could it?

“I suggest we bathe here and move on before sunset. It won’t take Howe’s men long to realise you’ve escaped and follow us here.”

The emptiness inside her filled instantly with rage. Her limbs were shaking with it.

How _dare_ he? He could have _fought_ ; they could have _stayed._ Should have stayed. But they hadn’t, and now her parents were _dead,_ and he’d used their last moments to barter for a new recruit.

What concern was the Blight now anyway?

Nothing mattered.

Nothing at all.

“I know you are angry,” Duncan said. “And you have a right to be. But all is not lost. Your brother may yet still live.”

He might have meant it kindly, but all she could do was glance up at him, hot tears of rage streaming down her cheeks.

“You can’t know that,” she spat, though the words sounded more choked than she would have liked them to. “You can’t. I might very well be the last of my family line because of _you.”_ Her voice turned to a growl as she stood up from the bank of the river where she had been knelt, exhausted. “You abandoned them. You _left_ them! You’re a Grey Warden. You could have _fought._ We should have _stayed!”_

“If we had, we would surely be dead along with them.” His voice held no trace of regret, his eyes no flicker of emotion, just cold, hard logic.

She threw herself at him with a strangled yell, beating her fists against his armoured chest. Some part of her knew that it was pointless, just as a part of her knew that she was really more angry with herself than with him, but it was far simpler and easier to rage at him than it was to deal with the aching emptiness inside her.

To his credit, he let her rage against him until she was spent. Then, he held her gently as she collapsed into great, wracking sobs.

It was the one bit of kindness that he showed her before insisting that they move along as quickly as possible.

The days that followed were not easy.

Duncan, for all the warmth and charm he’d seemed to have possessed back in the castle, didn’t seem to know how to deal with her in her grief. Their conversation rarely strayed from the practical necessities of travel and, on the few occasions when she had managed to drag herself out of the despair that perpetually lurked at the edge of her consciousness, he only ever answered her questions about the Grey Wardens in the most vague terms.

It made her wonder whether he was hiding something, or if his evasiveness was a result of her pain.

Either way, a Grey Warden was what she would become now, and as they drew nearer to Ostagar she came to accept it.

It was, in some way, a blessing. If she chose to, she might be able to cast off her old life entirely. Forget she ever had a father, or mother, or a home. Forget that she was ever a lady of noble birth, and if she could do that then maybe, maybe the pain would be less.

They stopped by a pond somewhere on the road between Highever and Ostagar. In truth, she didn’t really know where they were; too grief-stricken to pay attention to the road during those first few days. Without Duncan, she would have no hope of finding civilisation again.

Her reflection gazed back at her, rippling as a breeze disturbed the water. It was a perfect metaphor for how she felt. Shattered, uncertain. Her long wavy hair drifted in the breeze, its ends settling on the water.

The hair of a noble lady.

Not that her face reflected that any longer.

She would never be Lady Cousland ever again. She was a warrior now, bred for battle and war and desolation, and for the first time that felt right. A reflection of her ruined soul, ruined heart.

She didn’t really think as she drew her dagger from its sheath. Too deep in the numbness that had pervaded her senses in between the bouts of grief and rage.

With her other hand she gathered the silken strands. Or, rather, the strands that ordinarily _would_ have been silky, had she been safe in her castle where she _should_ be. Now they were dull, rough, as she brought the blade up behind where she held them and sliced.

The strands fell into her hands. Thick and wavy. She stared at them for a moment before slicing the other side.

Now, when she looked back into the pond, she saw a warrior. Her hair curled around her chin. Practical, easier to deal with, reflecting the fact that she no longer had the time and luxury to care for long locks.

Duncan didn’t comment as she went back to their fire and cast the strands into it, watching them burn with detached emotion, wondering whether she would ever feel again. 

By the time they reached Ostagar, she felt exhausted. Not from the road, though it was further than she had travelled in years, but from the storm of emotions that raced through her, interspersed with the periods of that terrible numbness.

Yet, as soon as she saw the king, she couldn’t help but fall into the ingrained protocols she’d been taught since birth.

She felt a flicker of her old self as she begged for him to help her take her revenge on Howe. When he agreed, something in her chest loosened, a weight she hadn’t realised she’d carried flying free.

Perhaps there was something worth living for after all. Even if it was only revenge and a vague hope that her brother might still live.

She still wandered through the camp half in a daze.

She was aware that she _should_ feel something about the upcoming battle: trepidation about facing darkspawn on the battlefield, fear for her own life, something, anything. But there was nothing. As if she had already experienced too much, and the well of her feelings had run dry.

She absorbed the news that the upcoming fight would likely not be as simple or as easy as King Cailan supposed with remarkable passivity, more concerned with finding the Grey Warden that Duncan had sent her to look for.

It seemed an easier, more possible task than shouldering the whole of Ferelden’s fate.

“Yes. I was harassing you by delivering a message.”

The tone was light, teasing, yet with an underlying frustration. It had come from the ruins at the edge of the camp. Near where Duncan had told her to look for the Warden named Alistair.

“Your glibness does you no credit,” another voice growled as she approached.

“And here I thought we were getting along so well,” the first voice drawled.

Now that she was closer, she could see that the words had come from a warrior. Tall, extremely broad and handsome. _Very_ handsome. There was something… strangely familiar about him too, as if she’d met him somewhere before. Though she was sure that she would remember meeting someone like him.

“I was even going to name one of my children after you,” he continued. “The grumpy one.”

Despite herself she felt a smile quirk the edge of her lip. The first time any attempt at light-heartedness had provoked even the slightest reaction from her in days. It was then that she noticed the Grey Warden crest on his shield and realised that this must be the Warden she’d been sent to find.

“Enough. I will speak to the woman if I must,” the other man, a mage, spat. “Get out my way fool.” He brushed past both of them quickly.

The warden, Alistair, observed with a raised eyebrow. “You know,” he drawled in that good-humoured yet somehow frustrated tone as he turned toward her. “One good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together.”

She couldn’t help it. Her face split into a wide grin. The first that had graced her lips since that morning in Highever, not that she realised it at the time.

“I know _exactly_ what you mean,” she said.

“It’s like a party, we can all stand in a circle and hold hands. That would give the Darkspawn something to think about,” he drawled, causing her to let out a small laugh, insane though it was that she was even capable of such a thing. “Wait… we haven’t met, have we?”

She grinned again. Somehow, the fact that he’d spoken to her, joked with her, _before_ realising that they hadn’t, in fact, met, was… endearing.

“I don’t suppose you happen to be another mage?”

“Why?” she asked, tilting her head to one side in order to consider him. “Would that make your day worse?”

He grinned at her. A broad, wide smile that suited him and rendered his already very handsome face even more so.

She couldn’t help but respond in kind.

“Hardly,” he said. “I just like to know my chances of being turned into a toad at any given moment.”

She snorted in a way that most definitely would have earned her a disapproving look from her mother, had she been present.

That single idle thought closed her throat immediately.

“Wait, I do know who you are,” Alistair continued. “You’re Duncan’s new recruit from Highever. I should have recognised you right away, I apologise.”

She blinked at that. How was he supposed to have recognised her when they had never met?

“And you must be Alistair,” she said instead, wondering if it were perhaps some special Grey Warden power.

“Did Duncan mention me?” he grinned, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Nothing bad, I hope?”

She shook her head, resisting the urge to lie and say that Duncan had told her all sorts of horror stories. She wouldn’t have hesitated had she been at home, but she didn’t know anyone here, so she couldn’t be sure how well her sharp tongue would be received.

Best to stay quiet.

“As the junior member of the order, I’ll be accompanying you when you prepare for the joining.”

She wasn’t sure why the notion of him tagging along made her feel better about the whole thing. Perhaps it was because she already felt more at ease around him than she had around Duncan for the whole of their journey, but somehow the prospect of the joining seemed a little less terrifying.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said, and she meant it. “My name is Elissa.”

“Right,” Alistair said, beaming at her. “That was the name. You know,” he added, tilting his head to consider her. “It just occurred to me that there have never been many women in the Grey Wardens. I wonder why that is.”

“Probably because we’re too smart for you,” she shot back without thinking.

It wasn’t that she thought that he was particularly _against_ female Grey Wardens or that he was questioning her skills, it was just… she’d faced a lot of similar issues when she’d taken up training with the sword and dagger, and tended to go on the offensive when the issue was raised.

Fortunately, Alistair merely barked a laugh. 

“True. But if you’re here – what does that make you?” he asked, the smile still on his lips.

She blinked. He raised a good point.

“Er… Just one of the boys?” she hazarded.

He threw back his head, laughing uproariously at that. She couldn’t help but smile in response.

“Sad, isn’t it?” he said, still grinning. “So, I’m curious.” They began to walk back. “Have you ever actually encountered Darkspawn before?”

“No, I haven’t,” she said. “Have you?”

He nodded.

“When I fought my first one, I wasn’t prepared for how monstrous it was. I can’t say I’m looking forward to encountering another.”

Their talk was easy as they wandered back to the Grey Warden camp. He was… affable and kind and funny and something in her chest had eased.

Things were undoubtedly the worst they had ever been for her.

But perhaps, perhaps it was not _so_ bleak. Perhaps there was a little joy to be found in the Grey Wardens.

Somehow, becoming one didn’t seem so terrible anymore.


End file.
